One-in-five smokers swallow the line some cigarettes are safer

Nicky Phillips

TWENTY per cent of smokers believe some brands of cigarettes are safer than others, a study has found.

Smokers of ''gold'', ''silver'' or ''slim'' cigarettes were also more likely to think their brand was less harmful.

The findings highlight the power cigarette packaging can have on people's risk perception, and come as the federal government prepares to introduce its plain packaging legislation.

As part of an international study, researchers surveyed more than 8000 current and former smokers, including more than 2000 Australians, about their beliefs.

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Females were more likely to believe some brands may be less harmful while older people considered their brand was safer.

More than a third falsely believed nicotine was linked to cancer, and 41 per cent thought light cigarettes were better for them. While the words ''light'' and ''mild'' have been banned on cigarette packaging in Australia since 2005, the researchers believe the colours used on those packages, which are also used as descriptors by some brands such as Marlboro Gold, have a ''hangover'' effect.

Smokers might falsely believe these cigarettes were less harmful because they associated them with being light or mild, they said. ''All conventional cigarette brands present the same level of risk to smokers, including so-called lower tar cigarettes,'' said the authors, whose study is published in the journal Addiction.

A public health researcher and co-author of the study, David Hammond, said despite Australians being, perhaps, the best informed smokers in the world, he was not shocked that one in five still believed certain cigarette brands were less harmful.

''It is not terribly surprising when one thinks about the legacy of tobacco industry marketing, as well as the way in which brands continue to be marketed with descriptors such as 'slims' and 'smooth','' he said.

It was likely the study had underestimated these beliefs given that most smokers were reluctant to admit to them, said Dr Hammond, from the University of Waterloo in Canada.

Under a draft of the plain packaging bill, released last week, tobacco products will have to be sold in a matt olive brown packet, and the the government will have the power to restrict the size, shape and colour of individual cigarettes.

Graphic health warnings, which cover 30 per cent of the front of tobacco packets, will increase to 75 per cent.